


Boundaries

by talkingtothesky



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Codependency, Light Angst, M/M, Merry Month of Masturbation Challenge, Mutual Pining, Season/Series 02, Unresolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 17:50:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18721984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/pseuds/talkingtothesky
Summary: Harold isn't oblivious. He's trying to be the responsible one.





	Boundaries

**Author's Note:**

> Past Harold/Nathan implied, but not enough to tag.
> 
> Not sure this one works, but I'm trying not to do the same thing day after day, so what you get is a bunch of contradictory / unpopular headcanons.

Harold is not unaware that Mr. Reese is in the habit of thinking about him in a less than professional light. He’s not upset by this. He knows what it’s like to work very closely with someone for many years, to spend most of one’s time focused on their needs and ideas. But that doesn’t mean he should encourage it. Ethically, he’s in a very precarious position. Harold was never dependent on Nathan for his entire income, and his emotional state did not dramatically alter if Nathan went out of town for a few days. Reese already relies upon him to an alarming degree. If Harold ever breached that last boundary between them, he’s not sure he could forgive himself.

What Harold himself might want is irrelevant. He has to protect John from becoming any more deeply involved with him. Mr. Reese will not maintain his own boundaries. Harold has to do that for them both.

It doesn’t help that Mr. Reese is frequently in extreme peril, and that Harold is only prepared to risk himself to extract him from it. Every time Harold saves his life, Reese imagines his debt to Harold growing, and says so. Whenever Harold tries to convince him that debt doesn’t exist, Reese won’t listen.

And part of him knows Reese is right. He finds himself uttering the words ‘I owe you a debt’, after John saves him. He is weak, in that moment, and tired, and might have said to hell with boundaries, if not for Root’s call.

It doesn’t help that Reese neglects to remove his earpiece when he gets home, the night they go out for drinks. Harold doesn’t need to hear his own name sighed more than once, accompanied by the rhythmic splashing of bath water. He has started making sure the line is closed, Bluetooth disabled, the moment Reese leaves the library for the night. Harold never reactivates it at three am when he can’t sleep. Sometimes he can lose ten minutes with his fingertip poised millimeters from the screen, fighting his own conscience, his own gut-wrenching loneliness.

Sometimes he can convince himself he imagined the bath incident, and that he’s worried over nothing. And then the next day or the day after, John’s hands will reach for him, casually, automatically. Completely unguarded, in ways an accomplished spy cannot afford to be.

Harold doesn’t think about John’s hands. Kneeling in the library while washing their dog, John’s soapy hands collide with Harold’s as they scruff along Bear’s back. Lying winded in a train station, John’s hands are quick and gentle as they slide beneath Harold’s vest, checking for injuries. Commandeering Harold’s desk, John ejects a tumbling bullet from its chamber and deftly catches it, fingers curling up gracefully.

Denial only gets him so far. Alone in his bed, Harold slicks up his hands and thinks of John, and how it’s quite possible that John is doing the same while thinking of him.

So Harold has known all along that he and John are attracted to one another. But he doesn’t admit it outside of his head. Because Harold Finch is trying to be a good man, and although Nathan and John have both given him shining examples, he’s struggling to decide what that entails.


End file.
